Uptime: the Anti-Downtime Uptime is the goal. All this hand wringing about downtime is all to keep your business’ technology working for your staff. At SRS Networks, we look at it as risk avoidance. If your systems are up and running as intended, there is very little risk that whatever your business does, it can do. That’s not to say that it will be successful from more uptime, but it sure can’t hurt. Your average business has a fairly complex IT infrastructure, insofar as it has a lot of different machines connected together to allow for maximum effectiveness. Servers, workstations, networking equipment, printers and copiers, and other pieces of technology. Each of these pieces of technology has a chance to cause operational downtime. In fact, a faulty keyboard or mouse is enough to keep some people from being productive. Uptime is a metric calculated to correspond with productivity, but really it is the story of maintenance. At SRS Networks, we work hard to maximize uptime. We use state-of-the-art tools to monitor, manage, and maintain each piece of our clients’ infrastructure for one purpose, to promote a work environment that has optimal uptime. Since downtime can come from almost anywhere, it’s important to prioritize the creation of information systems that are easy to maintain. In the IT world, uptime is the goal, as it gives the end user the best chance at achieving success. How We Can Help Build Uptime Our business is based on the uptime/downtime paradigm shifting dramatically in our clients’ favor. We try to accomplish this in several ways. These include: Hardware procurement – Offering clients hardware options to meet their operational and security needs. Professional installation – We will ensure that all tools are professionally installed to give your organization the best chance to succeed. Bulletproof networking – Networking is a huge part of the modern workplace. We set up all wired and wireless network connections, routers, switches, and all other network related equipment to the highest standards. This ensures that data flow and network access are optimally set up and maintained. Remote monitoring – For information systems to maximize uptime, there have to be proactive efforts made. We remotely monitor and maintain all network attached machines, eliminating any significant downtime in the process. Backup and Disaster Recovery – Having a redundant and actively available data backup is proven to reduce downtime in the face of a data loss scenario. Help Desk – If end users have problems with their individual workstations, our comprehensive help desk service is a great resource to resolve problems and reduce downtime. To talk to our expert consultants about how we can help you get control over your IT and work to reduce or eliminate downtime you have to deal with give us a call today at (831) 758-3636.
Innovation Through IT It’s not a secret that lots of businesses rely on their information technology systems to run their entire business. IT fuels efficient data storage, use of stored data, and collaborative interfacing with said data. Even as that’s happening, businesses have to constantly monitor and maintain their IT systems. After all, if you depend on technology, and the technology goes down, your business isn’t going to get anything done. That is why innovations that make technology more reliable, and new tools that turn traditional business resources on its head, are moving business, and society, forward. Since this simple notion has been very difficult to put into practice, thought leaders and industry professionals are now trying to determine how to transform applications and infrastructure architectures, service delivery, DEVOps, production operations, security, and compliance. They are doing this, more than ever, by assessing what is needed and developing solutions. This is leading to the development of new solutions that will take IT out from a support capacity and make it more active in the day-to-day administration of key business tasks. Investment in Cognitive Computing Cognitive computing is the act of using powerful computing resources machine learning and artificial intelligence to continuously process data that is received in the course of doing business. These systems include pattern recognition, language processing, and data mining to create an efficiency that isn’t possible without these technologies. As more information comes in, these technologies are being used to improve the business’ ability to shift their business in ways that can: Enhance business agility by quickening decision making. Be able to consistently scale processes to meet budgetary and operational demands. Improve the overall efficiency and performance of a business. These technologies can also be used to support several different internal and external aspects of your business. They can help build a more robust operational structure, while also automating several of your business’ customer retention initiatives. By investing in the tools needed to create a more effective business, the “smart” business is sure to stay a step ahead of their direct competitors, and in some cases will be able to help the business to explore new avenues of revenue generation. Information Security A data breach can be a really terrible situation for any business, especially when clients’ and employees’ personal information is stolen. Today, threats are numerous and consistent, so technologies have been developed to help organizations weed out threats. There are several innovative tools designed to improve an organization’s data security initiatives. Many of these tools also use machine learning and artificial intelligence to actively adjust a cybersecurity policy to the threats the individual business faces. Since both sides have access to these tools, it becomes essential that companies get proficient at identifying the risks that their essential information systems present. These include: Remote access – With many businesses using workers that access data and applications from outside of their network, security solutions need to be able to secure these connections. IoT – With most businesses having dozens of unsecured endpoints in the way of IoT devices, having a strategy to keep them from becoming vulnerabilities is important. Regulatory demands – Some businesses have certain regulations they have to comply with and have certain conditions they need to meet in order to do so. Hackers – […]
Managed Support The Managed Service Provider (MSP) provides an experience unlike traditional service providers’ methodology. Let’s take a look at two scenarios: Art is finishing up a design using a popular image editing program, when all of a sudden the software crashes. Annoyed, Art tries to reload the software only to find that it isn’t responding to his commands. He starts to click around, when the whole computer freezes. He calls the service desk only to be told that the IT guy is out to lunch. The issue causes significant downtime for Art. Paul works for a rival business that uses managed IT services. He is using the same program and has the same issue. He calls his support line and the person on the other end of the phone asks him a couple of questions and then remotely accesses the computer, fixing the issue. In no time, Paul is back working on his design. Onsite Support Services Most of the time, a managed service provider can sustain a dynamic IT infrastructure remotely. Sometimes, however, the situation calls for onsite work. Managed service providers hire (and train) some of the best technicians in your market. If your business needs someone to come swap out or install hardware, work on your organization’s networking, or to handle another issue, managed services technicians are trained and proficient. Keep Business Moving Forward Don’t lose minutes, hours, and days to downtime. Call the IT professionals at SRS Networks today at (831) 758-3636 to learn how your business can use managed IT services to its benefit. Be sure to return to our blog Friday for part three of our five-part series of managed IT services.
What Are Managed IT Services? Picture this: Your business suddenly encounters an IT-related issue. Your primary business system is no longer working. What do you do? You call your IT department and hope that someone can resolve the issue. So what benefit do managed IT services have that traditional approaches cannot bring to the table? Well, traditional IT departments typically are comprised of a couple employees who know their way around a computer. However, these individuals typically do not know effective business solutions. Managed IT providers use state-of-the-art tools to constantly monitor your business’ network and hardware. Certified technicians are able to determine the operating state of your technology, and repair concerns before they become an issue. Remote management platforms allow technicians to repair individual software concerns, without the wait times of traditional IT departments. So where is the value in these managed services? Simple. You aren’t paying an hourly rate for members of an IT staff to wait around for something to break. Providers handle IT in a proactive manner, meaning not only does your hardware last longer, but it is able to perform better. If constantly paying your employees to sit around because your technology is slow or constantly breaking is the business strategy you prefer, then a re-evaluation may be necessary. Some of the money you are spending on employee downtime could be put towards a cost-saving IT solution, increasing business profitability. Managed IT services offer businesses a strategy which can keep their technology up and running effectively. Maintaining up-time increases productivity, efficiency, and overall organizational effectiveness. Proactive > Reactive Proactiveness is the deliverable that managed IT services provide. The proactive approach is the sole reason why the service provides so much value. Having experienced professionals available at the push of a button (or click of a mouse) is what SRS Networks has to offer. Actively monitoring your business, and doing so for a fraction of the price you would be paying with onsite IT technicians, allows you to focus on the true aspects of your business. Do you really want to walk around your office reminding your employees to constantly patch and update their computers and other devices? Managed IT services offer comprehensive patch management. It is more important now than it ever has been to update your software. With the overwhelming cost of a data breach, shortcomings in security are no longer an option. Can you really afford the sensitive and personal data of both your customers and staff being breached? Will you be able to overcome the effect a breach will have on your business’ reputation? Managed IT services provide an immense value to any size business. SRS Networks has trained technicians whose primary concern is your business’ security. If you would like to learn more about what managed IT services can offer, check back for part two of our blog, or give us a call at (831) 758-3636.
Let’s dive into how each approach typically plays out for the businesses that adopt them. A Reactive Approach An organization that reacts to external factors would be referred to as reactive. New competition opens up? Looks like it’s time to improve upon efficiency. Is the economy experiencing a rough patch? Maybe we should scale back on our spending. The big problem with this methodology is that it leaves a business a few steps behind, which makes it vulnerable to larger issues. Instead of being ready to handle any competition, a business that acts reactively will be forced to play catch-up, which means that the business will never quite reach its full potential. A Proactive Approach On the other hand, you have a business that anticipates changes, whether they would be detrimental to their business or beneficial, and plans for them accordingly. A proactive business will analyze the data they have access to as a means of predicting what trends are likely to emerge, and will often prepare for multiple eventualities… just in case. Keeping a data backup, maintaining it offsite and in keeping with the best practices we recommend, that’s an example of a proactive behavior. Managed services are proactive by their very nature, as you have to anticipate an issue to know to look out for it. Use Proactive Solutions with SRS Networks Don’t just take our word for it – give the services that we offer a shot and see for yourself. Our trained professionals will keep an eye on your technology solutions on your behalf – preventing issues before they interfere with your productivity. To learn more, keep reading our blog, or reach out to us directly! We’re just a call to (831) 758-3636 away for any of your IT needs. Start being more productive and reach out today – before you have no other choice.
What You Need to Know While a small server may not look a lot different from the PC you already use, it is much different. Firstly, a server is typically a higher-powered computer that runs a specialized operating system designed to support multiple users. The way the server is configured suggests that it is designed to run multi-user applications. These include email, some type of messaging, print servers designed to manage company-wide print jobs, and customer relationship management (CRM). Since each user with access to the server can make it simple to share data, organizations that would like to see their line of business software integrate with their CRM will host both applications on one server. What exactly should you know before buying your small business’ first server? We’ll take a look into it now. Onsite vs. Cloud The first decision you have to make once you’ve decided to get a server is how you want that server deployed. The traditional way in which a business would deploy a server is by purchasing the hardware and finding a space in your place of business to store it. Another option is to rent server space in the cloud. Options like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Windows Azure, and Rackspace Cloud Hosting offer several benefits. The most prevalent is that they transfer costs. With the purchase of a server, a company takes on the costs of the hardware, which are often substantial, they then deploy software, and have to pay to have their hardware managed. If the hardware costs aren’t enough, the maintenance costs can be multiple times that. With cloud computing, you can get a secure, reliable server that can be accessed from any place you have access to a high-speed Internet connection. This provides accessibility that many other servers don’t have, while paying per month rather than up front. Let’s make a list of some pros and cons: Onsite Server Pros: You have complete control over organizational data. You can alter storage types and amount at any time. Onsite backup is much easier. Data recovery from onsite backup is much faster. Cons: Capital costs of hardware. Costs of continued maintenance. Utility costs. Costs of physical security. Hardware is only marginally utilized. Open to several disastrous scenarios. Hosted Server Pros: Eliminate capital costs of buying and maintaining hardware. Mitigate server-based utility costs. Quickly scalable. Data and application redundancy built in. Cons: The need for stable and reliable bandwidth rises. Costs of bandwidth rise. Security can become an issue. Lose physical control over the management of the servers. As you can see there are positives and negatives about each computing strategy. One strategy that a lot of businesses are using nowadays is the establishment of a private cloud server. The private cloud server is a server that is hosted either onsite or in its own dedicated cloud space, and can come with a lot of the pros (and cons) listed above. It provides a company that needs to have control over the management of organizational data and applications to do so while also having the ability to access the data outside of the confines of its physical network. Regardless of what kind of server you are looking for the experts at SRS Networks can help. Find out more about your server options by […]
May Citrix – May 2, 2019 Citrix, a conferencing and digital workplace software company revealed that hackers gained access to the company’s internal systems between October 2018 and March 2019. Data stolen included Social Security numbers, financial information, and data of current and former employees. AMC Networks – May 3, 2019 Names, email addresses, subscription details and other information of 1.6 million users of AMC Network’s Sundance Now and Shudder streaming services were left exposed through a database that was left unsecured. Freedom Mobile – May 9, 2019 Canadian mobile provider Freedom Mobile had an estimated 1.5 million customers’ personal and financial information left exposed on a third-party server. The types of data left exposed included names, email addresses, mailing addresses, dates of birth, and credit card information. Indiana Pacers – May 13, 2019 The business team behind the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers was the victim of a phishing attack. The information that was exposed included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical insurance information, card numbers, digital signatures and login information. No number of affected individuals has been given by the team. WhatsApp – May 14, 2019 The Facebook-owned app WhatsApp has experienced a security flaw that provided access to an Israeli government surveillance agency, NSO Group. NSO Group had limited access to the microphone, camera, and WhatsApp message text of the app’s 1.5 billion users. Instagram – May 20, 2019 Another Facebook-owned property, Instagram had a breach that exposed more than 49 million Instagram influencers, celebrities, and brands’ Instagram information when an Indian-based social media marketing company left it exposed. Canva – May 24, 2019 139 million users of Canva, a cloud-based graphic design tool, had their names, usernames, and email addresses exposed when hackers infiltrated their server. First American Financial Corp. – May 24, 2019 A leading title insurer for the U.S. real estate market, First American Financial Corp. had 885 million customers’ Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, mortgage and tax records, wire transaction receipts, and driver’s license images exposed for all customers as far as back as 2003. Other May breaches: Inmediata Health Group, Uniqlo, Wyzant, Flipboard, Checkers (the fast food chain). June Quest Diagnostics – June 3, 2019 Almost 12 million patient records have been compromised when hackers took control of the payments page of AMCA, a major payment vendor for Quest Diagnostics. Data such as financial account data, Social Security numbers, and health information (ePHI) were left exposed. LabCorp – June 4, 2019 In the same hack, LabCorp announced that 7.7 million of its customers were impacted. Emuparadise – June 10, 2019 The gaming website Emuparadise had their users’ IP addresses, usernames, and passwords exposed in a data breach. Evite – June 11, 2019 More than 100 million users of the Evite event planning app have had their information put up for sale on the dark web. Information that was stolen included names, email addresses, IP addresses, and cleartext passwords. Some even had their dates of birth, phone number, or postal address exposed. Total Registration – June 11, 2019 Kentucky-based Total Registration, a facilitator of scholastic test registrations had their entire service compromised. Victims, who were mainly students who had registered for PSAT and Advanced Placement tests, had their names, dates of birth, grade level, […]
What Are the Different Types of IT Services? There are three different approaches you can take for your business’ IT needs. You can hire an IT consultant, host your own IT staff, or pay a set fee with an MSP. IT Consultant An IT consultant will charge you hourly and is a more reactive measure to IT dilemmas. Typically, you will reach out to an IT consultant once a problem has actually occurred. This means your company suffers from downtime while you wait for the problem to be resolved. On-site IT An on-site IT team is relatable to a managed service provider in the sense that it is a more proactive approach. These two work to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. However, with an on-site IT staff, you are still paying hourly; and your hourly staff is more beneficial leveraging the skills to the benefit of your business rather than focusing on IT. Managed IT Services MSPs are the superior option due to their fixed fee arrangements and proactivity. They give your company greater freedom to focus on core business matters. There is no need to divert your attention to IT-related tasks with a managed service provider. MSPs have the experience needed to properly see the needs of your sized business. Is My Business Too Small for an MSP? Part of an MSP’s responsibility is to identify your business’ needs and create a strategy to fulfill them. Managed Service Providers offer the most cost-effective IT strategy for any business, of any size. MSPs provide 24/7 detection your business otherwise would not be able to detect. This means your MSP will be able to tell you when your server is failing, or your hardware is crumbling. MSPs allow you to fix the issue before it ever becomes a problem. They also offer 24/7 monitoring and patch management which can prevent your hardware from crumbling in the first place. Prevention is the most cost-effective strategy your business can utilize. The traditional approach, “fix it when it breaks” which meant paying for expensive technology malfunctions and issues as they occur, has been left behind with the introduction to affordable and proactive managed IT services. SRS Networks Offers Your IT Solution Whatever industry your business operates in, SRS Networks offers IT solutions that leverage your investment. MSPs are the future of IT. To learn how you can outsource your IT and benefit from our services, talk to our professionals at (831) 758-3636.
Wearing Too Many Hats Many business owners make the mistake of taking on too much responsibility for themselves. It is almost as if these business owners forget that they aren’t running a sole proprietorship, that they are running a business – which means they have employees to leverage and delegate tasks to. If they don’t, they need to prioritize building a team they can trust, allowing themselves to focus on their top-tier responsibilities. Misunderstanding Your Audience So, you’re doing your best to understand your audience better, and so you’re doing research into their preferences – specifically, whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi. You spend weeks running surveys, conducting market research – you analyze every bit of data you can – all to determine which variety of cola your audience prefers. Unbeknownst to you, however, your target audience actually prefers ginger ale. While this is admittedly a silly example, too many business owners make assumptions about the people they are trying to attract, inadvertently disregarding them or worse… driving them away. Curse of Knowledge Bias Whatever business you’re trying to open, you know your stuff. You’re more familiar with the ins-and-outs of your offering than you are with the back of your hand. It is perfectly fair and accurate to describe you as a subject matter expert – but there are cases in which this isn’t always a good thing. Have you ever had an expert try to explain something to you, only to have it go completely over your head? This was likely because the expert is so familiar with their subject, they subconsciously assume that everyone else is, too. As a result, they’ll gloss over crucial details and key facts (after all, these are all a “given” to them). This is a habit that needs to be identified and broken, if only to avoid frustrating your clients. Treating Employees Like a Corporation Can No matter their size, all businesses rely on their employees in order to function. However, larger businesses and corporations have the advantage of being far more able to attract and hire new employees (primarily due to their visibility) as compared to SMBs – which means that turnover is less of a concern for them. In order to not lose the people you’ve hired, you need to make sure you aren’t stifling your staff. Encouraging them will only benefit your business in both the short and long-term. Cutting the Wrong Costs When starting a new business, there’s considerable financial commitments to be made. Many entrepreneurs short-change some of these commitments at first, whether that means they’re postponing their marketing or they’re turning to resources found on the Internet rather than professionals. This kind of behavior is risky at best, as making the wrong cuts could wind up costing you and your business far more in the future. If you do need to cut costs, make sure it is done with a lot of consideration and predictive analysis. Not Leveraging Technology Technology solutions are known as solutions for a reason: they are intended to assist a business in accomplishing their goals by fixing problems. By not using them, a business owner is hamstringing their own operations. SRS Networks can help you avoid making this mistake, at least. To learn more, reach out to our team at (831) 758-3636.
You can get a pretty good idea by getting answers to the following questions: Does it feel like you are dealing with repeat computer issues or regular downtime? This might seem pretty obvious. If your IT isn’t working, then what are you paying for? In fact, if your staff experiences regular bouts of downtime, you are actually losing revenue. Downtime can come in a lot of flavors, ranging from the entire network going down to a particular application not being accessible. Does it feel like your IT is being actively managed and maintained, or is your current IT provider waiting for you to call them? If a user comes into work and their computer doesn’t boot up, or users can’t access files on the network, is your IT person contacting you to let you know they are aware of the issue and taking care of it? Granted, IT can’t see every issue as it happens (we don’t know, for example, when a shortcut to open Microsoft Word gets removed from your desktop), but big things like connectivity issues, downtime, and problems that affect multiple users should be actively monitored at all times, and smaller issues like errors and required updates need to be managed frequently. Are emergencies treated like, well, emergencies? We mentioned this before with downtime, but does it feel like downtime is being handled with the utmost seriousness? Downtime is extremely expensive. If you have 10 employees that can’t work, that’s 10 paychecks you are still writing out at the end of the week, plus the loss of revenue those employees would have contributed to. Is your current IT provider responding to emergencies within an hour or less? Is every effort being made to get you back up and running? Can your employees get support without being worried about costing the business money? There is nothing worse to an end user than having to deal with an annoying computer problem that’s stopping them from simply getting their job done. It’s demotivating, especially when they don’t feel like they can get anything done about it. Ideally, if a user reports an issue to you, you should tell them they are welcome to put in a ticket and to let you know if it doesn’t come to resolution. Is your network fully documented? Is there documentation for each device on your network? That includes desktops and laptops, servers, printers, routers, access points, switches, VoIP phones, and other devices. This documentation should include purchase/installation dates, who installed it, model and serial numbers, warranty information, and access information. Is your data being backed up? It doesn’t matter how busy your IT staff or IT provider seems to be; your data should be their very first priority. If your data isn’t being meticulously backed up, and if those backups aren’t being checked regularly, it’s time to find someone who will take things seriously. Is your IT firm working with you regularly to discuss and review their own performance? IT isn’t just about fixing issues, it’s about making technology work for your business. If you don’t have an account manager who’s keeping you in the loop when licenses are expiring or software is getting out of date, you won’t be able to budget out your IT roadmap. On top of that, they should be […]